Coast Guard stops overloaded boat with Haitians off Bahamas
Grainy footage taken from a U.S. Coastline Guard plane reveals an overloaded sailboat packed with people today from Haiti off the coastline of Anguilla Cay Friday, March 4, 2022.
For the second time in a 7 days, the U.S. Coastline Guard on Friday stopped an overloaded sailboat packed with persons migrating from Haiti.
This time, the vessel was stopped about 10 miles off Anguilla Cay, a Bahamian island just north of Cuba. The Coast Guard stated 123 men and women were being on board. The actual measurement of the boat was not straight away known, but judging by footage released by the Coast Guard, the variety of people on board considerably exceeded the vessel’s capacity.
The interdiction will come 6 times after the Coast Guard stopped a sailboat with 179 people today from Haiti 30 miles off Andros Island, also in the Bahamas.
The federal government tracks maritime migration by the fiscal 12 months, commencing and ending Oct. 1. If the figures of Haitian migrants stopped at sea continue on at the existing fee, fiscal year 2022 will surpass final fiscal year, which saw the most people interdicted by the Coastline Guard considering the fact that FY 2019.
Because October, the Coastline Guard stopped 1,116 Haitian migrants very likely headed to Florida, compared with 1,527 in all of fiscal yr 2021. In fiscal calendar year 2020, the Coast Guard only encountered 418 people today from Haiti at sea.
Friday’s incident is also part of a craze in which Haitian migrants are overloading on to sailboats to make the dangerous maritime journey. Many of these vessels have arrived off the coastline of Vital Largo in the Upper Keys due to the fact November.
In January, 176 persons had been stopped in the vicinity of the distinctive gated north Key Largo neighborhood of Ocean Reef.
On Christmas Eve, Border Patrol agents took 52 people from Haiti into custody immediately after they arrived by sailboat off a remote two-lane freeway that qualified prospects to Ocean Reef referred to as Card Sound Highway.
That landing came immediately after 63 Haitian migrants landed in virtually the same locale on Card Seem Highway, again in an overloaded sailboat.
This tale was at first posted March 4, 2022 7:44 PM.
David Goodhue covers the Florida Keys and South Florida for FLKeysNews.com and the Miami Herald. Just before signing up for the Herald, he protected Congress, the Environmental Defense Company and the Section of Energy in Washington, D.C. He is a graduate of the University of Delaware.